


Gammer Gurton's Garland

by Laura JV (jacquez)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bisexual John Watson, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Demisexual Sherlock Holmes, Nursery Rhymes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22025749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquez/pseuds/Laura%20JV
Summary: Sherlock and John try to rebuild their lives in Eurus's wake.She has one more bomb to drop.
Relationships: John Watson/Other(s), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 38
Kudos: 221
Collections: Laura JV: Post-S4 Sherlock Fics





	Gammer Gurton's Garland

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to SwissMiss for beta work above & beyond, and to Basingstoke for the clean-up read. As always, any remaining mistakes are mine alone.

### One: The rose is red, the violet's blue

The car dropped John, exhausted and still damp with Musgrave's well-water, at his house. Sherlock snagged his sleeve as he got out, and John bent down to look back into the car at him. "John," he said. "I -- for tonight, I'm going to Mycroft's. Maybe for a few days. But afterwards, may I impose on you and Rosie, until my flat's repaired?"

"Yeah," said John, squeezing Sherlock's fingers firmly. "Yeah, 'course you can." His hand was cold but steady, and Sherlock could feel his pulse thumping steadily. He released his grip reluctantly, tugged his hand away from John's. 

John studied his face. "My phone didn't survive being down that well," he said, "or I'd tell you to call me and listen to me breathe all night."

"I'm fine," Sherlock said. 

"You're not," John answered, "but we're both alive. I'll be here in the morning. Come by and you can help me get Rosie and pick out a new phone." 

"At ten," Sherlock said. "I'll be here at ten."

John nodded, straightened, and closed the car door. He was gone, shut out, or perhaps Sherlock was shut out. 

Sherlock pressed his fingers to his mouth. His hands were cold, colder where John's had pressed. "Take me to my brother's," he said, and the driver nodded.

Mycroft's suit jacket was hung up, and his shoes lined up neatly, but Sherlock found Mycroft himself two steps into the kitchen, shaking. Or shuddering, or perhaps having a seizure, or a flashback. Something that involved long, full-body tremors. "Mycroft," Sherlock said, and Mycroft did the most horrible, impossible thing he had ever done: he turned and _embraced_ Sherlock, as if they were the sort of people who _did_ that. Mycroft tangled his arms around and _held_ him. The last time they'd touched, more than incidentally, was when Sherlock had twisted Mycroft's arm up behind him and shoved him against the wall at Baker Street. 

Sherlock patted his back, awkwardly. "Brother," he said, and Mycroft laughed wetly into his neck, which was disgustingly sentimental in addition to being physically disgusting. He had Mycroft's _tears_ and _sweat_ and probably _spittle_ on his skin.

Mycroft drew away, finally. "I do apologise," he said, running one hand over his face. "It's been a rather trying few days." 

"Yes," said Sherlock, drawing out the word between his teeth. "I'm going to stay here. For a short while." He took a deep breath. "So you needn't be alone."

Mycroft looked down. "Thank you," he said. "I...keep a room for you here."

"Do you?" Sherlock raised his eyebrows. He'd never voluntarily spent the night in Mycroft's house, though Mycroft had dragged him here, sometimes, when he'd found him too high to resist help. He'd always scrabbled his way out as soon as he was able, paying no attention to the details.

"Up the stairs, second room on the right." Mycroft rubbed his eyes. "Christ, Sherlock." 

Sherlock looked away, brushed his hand against Mycroft's. "Come on," he said. "Brandy. Then showers, then bed."

"I must be in a bad way, if _you're_ taking care of _me_ ," Mycroft said, but he followed Sherlock to the brandy, his stocking feet making soft sounds against the floor. 

They stared into their glasses, and after a few minutes, Sherlock said, "I thought Moriarty was obsessed, but Eurus -- it's not flattering, you know, to be the focus of attention like that. At one time I might have liked it, but now it makes me want to retire. Go raise bees by the seaside, perhaps."

Mycroft drained his glass and poured himself another, avoiding Sherlock's eyes. "I've considered it. I've also considered simply...killing her. Except that, of course, there wasn't any way to do it undetected; the number of people I would have had to bribe or kill to keep the secret numbers over twenty. Impossible."

"Impossible while she was confined, at any rate," Sherlock said. "If only you'd known she was running around London for at least the past six months, you could have saved us all a world of trouble." He took a deep breath. "We're going to have to tell our parents," he said.

Mycroft set his snifter down, none too gently. "I don't see why."

"If you don't, Mycroft, I will."

Mycroft closed his eyes. "Go to bed, brother mine. I'll see you in the morning." 

Sherlock bumped Mycroft gently with his shoulder as he passed. "Good night," he said, and watched tears slip from under Mycroft's eyelids and slide down his face. 

* * *

The second room on the right could almost be mistaken for a guest bedroom, except in the details. In the chest of drawers was a set of his favorite brand of pyjamas, and a duplicate of his burgundy robe; in the en suite was a basket with his shampoo and soap; in the bedside table was his childhood copy of Treasure Island, with _William Sherlock Scott Holmes_ in uneven, pencilled letters across the inside cover.

* * *

The morning brought its own troubles, in the form of Lady Smallwood. She arrived at half seven, looking as if she'd been awake most of the night. "Mycroft," she said, disapprovingly, and Mycroft shook his head. 

"We all knew the risks of using Eurus," he said, "and we thought it was worth it. Our analysis was flawed."

Lady Smallwood seated herself across from Sherlock, who poured her a cup of coffee. "Don't be so generous," she said. "No one blames you for this. You're on record for years warning us that we couldn't predict her and that she was more dangerous than we thought." 

Mycroft gripped the back of a chair, leaned his weight into it. "I also told you that Sherrinford was secure." 

"None of us had any reason to believe otherwise," Lady Smallwood said. She wasn't quite snapping at him, but it was a near thing. Mycroft stared at her in silence, and her face softened minutely. "You also warned us against letting Moriarty talk to her," she said, "and I overruled you."

"Mycroft," Sherlock said, softly, because Mycroft had told him none of this; Mycroft had, in fact, blamed himself. Mycroft looked away. 

Lady Smallwood cleared her throat and opened her briefcase; she began laying files on the table with quick, steady hands, and then a calendar with notations on various dates. She gave Sherlock a wry look. "I can't bring myself to trust a new assistant," she said. "And Mycroft simply refuses to let me have Anthea. Now. Any of this timeline that you two can fill in?" 

"Where _is_ Anthea?" Sherlock asked, and pulled the calender over to look at it. The notations were about Eurus's known movements: when she pretended to be Faith Smith, when she murdered John's therapist, when she shot John. He touched one finger to April. "Around this time, she was in London. John encountered her on the bus. If you look through his texts, you'll find communication with her." 

Lady Smallwood raised her eyebrows, and Sherlock sighed. "She tried to seduce him into an extramarital affair." 

"Why?" said Lady Smallwood. "What could that possibly accomplish?" 

Mycroft shook his head. "I don't know. To draw his focus away from his family, perhaps, or to distract him from Sherlock." He sighed. "Part of something she planned with Moriarty, apparently."

Sherlock turned his coffee cup in his hands. "I suppose it did work, to an extent, even though he's clearly better able to resist her control than the ordinary run of people. The guilt over how far he let it go drove him to seek a new therapist, so that he didn't have to tell Ella, who knows me, what he had done. A new therapist she could replace. And it damaged his relationship with me." He frowned. "She replaced his therapist, but didn't...enslave him. Either she didn't want to, or she wasn't able to. I don't know which." 

"I suppose we should be grateful your Dr. Watson is practiced at resisting the dubious charms of the Holmes family," Lady Smallwood said, and Sherlock surprised himself by laughing.

"Neither of us has any charms that John can appreciate," he said, gesturing between himself and his brother.

Mycroft poured himself another coffee. "Is that what you think?" he said. "He seems very susceptible to _you_ , though he hasn't ever had the time of day for me."

Lady Smallwood cleared her throat. "Any other times? Besides the ones where she pretended to be Faith Smith."

Sherlock shook his head. "Not to my knowledge."

Lady Smallwood handed him two of the files. "See what you can make of these, why don't you?"

He considered throwing the mother of all tantrums, but the lines of tension around Mycroft's eyes stopped him. He sat down and opened the folders. 

* * *

Sherlock was only a few minutes late to John's house, and John looked at the black car over his shoulder and said, "I'll just blame your brother for the tardiness, shall I?" 

"He promised me the car until Anthea needs it," Sherlock replied, and John laughed.

"Anthea's with Rosie," he said. "Come on." 

The safe house wasn’t far from John’s house, and Anthea let them in without ever looking up from her phone. "No problems at the nursery," she said, and led them through to where Rosie sat in a travel cot, playing with an iPad. When she smacked her fingers on the screen, bubbles bloomed under them and drifted upwards, and she screamed happily and did it again. 

"Did they destroy the records?" John asked, and picked up his daughter. "Hello, bunny-rose," he said, and kissed her. 

"I had two men go in yesterday and try to retrieve them. If they didn't destroy them, they at least moved them off-site." Anthea flicked her eyes up at them for the briefest instant. "Mary chose the nursery, didn't she?" 

"Mm," said John, and Anthea grinned down at her phone. 

* * *

Living with John again was marvelous, even if his house was nothing like Baker Street. The guest bedroom looked out onto the back garden, and the coverlet was cream, and the walls were sage green, and there was a perfect, impartial blandness to it that made him think of John's jumpers. Rosie, old enough now to creep around the floor, liked to follow him around and pat his feet when he stood still, and would open her mouth like a baby bird, begging for the horrible little baby snack puffs that John kept buying even though Sherlock kept throwing them out as unfit for human consumption.

Three days in, exhausted from picking up at his flat, he lay dozing on John's sofa. "Sherlock," John said, and he turned to look up at him. 

"Hm?" 

"Can I sit down? We could watch a movie?" 

"Movie," he replied, tired and contented, and scooted sideways enough to let John sit down. The movie involved a man getting revenge for the death of his dog, and it was ridiculous. Sherlock put his feet into John's lap and went to sleep. He woke up to Rosie pulling on his hair, and a warm blanket spread over him, and he said, gravely, "Watson, hair is not an entertainment device." She laughed and he picked her up, her little body warm and heavy in his arms, and he was seized by a paroxysm of happiness.

The first Thursday after Sherrinford, he got a text from Mycroft at 11am.

_Come by tonight. -M_

He didn't respond, and he waited until John went to bed, but he did go. Mycroft opened the door at midnight with a flash of surprise on his face, in his shirtsleeves, his hair rumpled. "You came," he said, and his voice was rough. 

Sherlock stepped into his brother's house, into his brother's personal space, breathed in: the faint spiciness of Mycroft's cologne, a hint of wine, the day's sweat. "Yes," he said. 

Mycroft turned away. "Brandy?" he asked, and Sherlock followed him in. 

There was a fire laid in, but burning low, and they sat in front of it, not speaking at first. After twenty minutes, Mycroft set aside his glass -- still half-full -- and said, "Our parents. I'd like to tell them this weekend. They're coming to town, in any case." 

"All right," Sherlock said. Mycroft knotted his hands together in his lap, probably to keep them from trembling. "Here? No. Your office." 

"The real office," Mycroft said. "Not the sham one." 

"The sham one's more comfortable." 

"The real one's more intimidating."

Sherlock laughed. "As if intimidating Mummy is possible." 

The next day, in Mycroft's office, Sherlock waited while Anthea ushered their parents in, then moved to lean against the door. Mummy looked worried.

"Mikey," she said. "Whatever is going on?" 

Mycroft said, "Sit down, please," and she did. Their father patted her hand. Mycroft looked past them, at Sherlock, who nodded. Mycroft took a deep breath and started talking. 

### Two: The honey's sweet, and so are you. 

Sherlock stopped and bought one of the ridiculous coffees that Molly loved, with caramel and whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate, and took it to her office. "Molly," he said, and set it on her desk. She leaned her face into her hands. 

"What do you want," she said, somehow making it not a question. She sounded very young, and very tired. 

"To apologise," he said, and sat in the guest chair. "This is at least twice I've hurt you terribly, isn't it?"

"At least," she said, without moving her hands, and then she heaved a sigh. "Right. So. I'd had, honestly, the worst internet date, and all I wanted was some tea and...you called. Right then. And then...it was horrible, the whole conversation. And then, then I was woken up at two in the bloody morning by the police, looking for explosives and, and spy cameras -- which they found, the cameras anyway, and I don't know what to think about any of it. So. Why don't you tell me." 

"I have a sister," he said, "and she said she'd kill you if I didn't make you say it. She'd blow up your flat. And she'd killed people before, in front of me, and she'd bombed my flat -- I knew she could. That she would. So. I couldn't let that happen. I had to play by her rules." He touched her hand. "Molly. I'm sorry. You're my friend." 

"That's the hell of it," she replied, still muffled behind her hands. "Everyone else knew, you know. And you didn't. You notice everything, but you never put the pieces together, not with me." 

"No," he said. "I knew. I didn't know why that made it difficult for you to say to me."

"'If it’s true, just say it anyway,'" she quoted to him, shaking her head, finally dropping her hands from her face.

"Might as well be my motto," he said. "I'm always doing it. No matter how much John tries to convince me to have some tact." 

Molly twisted her fingers together on her desk. "About John."

"Mm?"

"Are you gay?"

It had, frankly, been nearly a decade since anyone had directly asked. John had come the closest, asking if he had a boyfriend, and even that was nearly six years ago, now. "No," he said, "but I'm not available, all the same."

"Believe me, I know," she said. "I just wanted to know if that was why. Because you're in love with John."

"No," he said. "I mean, yes, if it were going to be anyone, it would be John." He thought about Irene, because she was nearly as interesting as John, in some ways. "Well, most likely, it would be John. But it isn't anyone. It's more that I don't do that sort of thing at all." 

"Oh," she said. "Not ever?" 

Carefully, trying not to give too much away, he said, "I have, in the past, but not for longer than you've known me."

"Oh," she said, again. "Would you? If John asked?" 

"Probably," he said. "I'm nearly certain he won't, though." 

She nodded. 

The silence stretched between them, only a little awkward. He touched her arm. "Are you all right? I mean. About this. Or about your horrible internet date." 

"Not really," she said, "but I will be." She wrinkled her nose. "He talked right over me trying to tell him about what I do to explain to me that women can't see dead bodies without fainting."

Sherlock snickered. "I'm surprised you didn't lure him to the mortuary with the promise of office sex."

"Oh my God," she said, "did I tell you what Kevin -- the new guy, did you meet him -- got caught doing?" 

"No. Was it licking corpses? He seemed the type." 

" _No._ Ew, that's disgusting. How is that something that has a type? Close the door, I'll tell you." 

He closed the door to her office and let the tale of Kevin's ill-advised coldroom Skype sex roll over him, watching the quick flicker of Molly's smile. 

* * *

It became almost a ritual: drinking with Mycroft on Thursdays. He'd never had a ritual with his brother before, never seen him at an appointed time. They'd never wanted one, but now they had one, and Sherlock didn't know what to make of it. 

"I'm going out," he said to John, two Thursdays after Sherrinford, and found himself at Mycroft's doorstep half an hour later, in the rain. Mycroft opened the door, let him inside, and once again they sat before the fire, nursing brandy into the night.

"You can stay, if you like," Mycroft offered, hours later, but Sherlock shook his head. John was expecting him, even if John was already asleep.

The next Thursday, Mycroft texted: _Dinner at the Diogenes? 20:00. -M_

Sherlock texted back: _You insufferable prat. -SH_ and showed up five minutes late, out of spite. 

Dinner was enormous, beautiful prawns, roasted with spices and served on a bed of rocket. Sherlock kept his comments about healthy food to himself, and was rewarded with ridiculously expensive whisky, like earth and smoke blooming in his throat, and a cigar. "How old-fashioned," he said, leaning over to let Mycroft light the cigar. Their fingers brushed, and Mycroft smiled. 

"It's nice to be old-fashioned, sometimes," he said. 

"I'd like to visit Eurus," Sherlock said, drawing on his cigar, watching the end glow red. "Alone, not when Mummy and Father go." 

"I thought you might," Mycroft said. "In two weeks I'm going out there myself, to oversee the repairs and upgrades, and interview potential governors. You're welcome to come along, to see her." 

"All right," he said. "I'll bring my violin." 

"Of course," Mycroft said.

* * *

Eurus didn't move, didn't look at him, not once the entire time. He remembered Mycroft saying, _She has passed beyond our view,_ and refused to close his eyes. 

"Well?" Mycroft said, afterwards.

"Well what? You were watching, I'm sure."

"I wasn't, in point of fact," Mycroft said. "It may surprise you to learn I'm capable of allowing you privacy." 

Sherlock sighed. "She didn't speak," he said. "I'm not entirely certain she listened either." 

* * *

Rosie ran a fever, and before John could call in sick, Sherlock said, "No, let me." 

"You sure?"

"I don't mind, John." 

She slept most of the morning, then woke and fussed angrily at him when he tried to feed her yoghurt. "Watson," he said, gravely, "you will feel better if you eat something." She refused the yoghurt, but did drink a cup of juice and ate a teething biscuit, so he counted it a win. 

He wiped her face and hands, and settled her on his side. Her knees pressed firmly against his ribs, and she held herself upright, strong and solid against him. She patted his face, and he grinned down at her. "Would you like a nursery rhyme?" he asked. He knew hundreds, now that he thought of them. Father must've read them to him, as a child; he couldn't imagine that Mummy would have bothered with such nonsense.

"Gay go up and gay go down, to ring the bells of London Town!  
Bull's eyes and targets, say the bells of St. Margaret's.   
Brickbats and tiles, say the bells of St. Giles.   
Halfpence and farthings, say the bells of St. Martin's.   
Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's.   
Pancakes and fritters, say the bells at St. Peter's.   
Two sticks and an apple, say the bells at Whitechapel.   
Old Father Baldpate, say the slow bells at Aldgate.   
You owe me ten shillings, say the bells at St. Helen's.   
When will you pay me? say the bells at Old Bailey.   
When I shall grow rich, say the bells at Shoreditch.   
Pray, when will that be? say the bells at Stepney.   
I'm sure I don't know, says the great bell at Bow."

Rosie laughed, and put her fingers in his mouth. "Oh, you like that?" he mumbled, as she pulled on his teeth, and turned his head until her slimy-wet hand slid out of his mouth and down his chin. "That's the version I learnt at home. The one they did at school was different. My father isn't a bit like my mother, but he's a strange fellow in his own right, you know. No Mother Goose for us." 

"Ba," said Rosie, and thunked her head down on his shoulder, shoving the fingers wet from his mouth into hers. 

"Watson," he said, "I'm not sure your immune system is up to that, at present. You already have a cold." 

"Ba," she said, again, and ignored him. 

"Your daddy doesn't listen to me, either," he told her, and rocked her gently, murmuring more nursery rhymes into the soft tufts of her hair. 

### Three: Thou art my love, and I am thine

Lestrade's fiftieth birthday party, that autumn, turned out to be more educational than Sherlock had been expecting. John made him go, of course, and then there were drinks, and now six people were seated on the floor of Lestrade's flat playing Never Have I Ever, which meant Sherlock was finding out delightful things he'd never deduced about anyone. People were so _open_ when they were just drunk enough not to fall over.

It hardly mattered that he hadn't met two of the players before, because one of the players was _John_.

"Never have I ever," Lestrade said, "kissed a bloke."

John and two women giggled and took a drink. "Who?" Sherlock asked John, and John leaned into his shoulder.

"No one you know," he said, and giggled again. 

"Never have I ever," said a woman -- forty-seven, lesbian, lived in the same block of flats, Lestrade's morning jogging partner -- "taken it up the arse." 

"Oh, _fuck you_ ," said the player to her left, as he and two others -- but neither John nor Lestrade -- sipped their drinks. "I told you about that _in confidence_!"

"I just don't think you should be ashamed of liking _pegging_ , Dave!"

Dave fired back, "Never have I ever fucked more than _fifteen people, Beth_."

John sat up, sighed, and raised his drink to his mouth. He and Beth were the only ones drinking. "Really, John?" Sherlock said. "Four in the first year we knew each other, and as far as I know, only Mary since then." 

John snickered. "Yeah, no, your count's off," he said. "You've only known me in a bit of a dry patch." 

"A _dry patch?_ Five women in five years isn't overwhelming, but it's hardly a _dry patch."_

John snickered again. "You have _no_ idea, do you?" 

"No," said Sherlock. "More than fifteen? And you were with Mary for two years, you're still mourning her, so we'll dismiss that period as an anomaly. So if four in that first year was a dry patch, then -- what about the two years I was gone? How many then?" He knew almost nothing about that time, and John's raw, violent agony at his return had prevented him from ever asking, unwilling to reopen a wound that seemed barely healed. 

John leaned back onto his right palm and took another swallow of his drink. "Not sure exactly. A few dozen at least."

_"What?"_

"I fucked a _lot_ of people while you were gone, Sherlock," he said, and got to his feet. "Happy birthday, Greg. Time for me to be going, before everyone here gets far too much information." He grinned and shook Lestrade's hand, then headed for the door. 

Sherlock scrambled up after him. "John. _John!_ How many? Total?" 

"This isn't actually any of your business," John said, shrugging into his coat, but he didn't sound particularly annoyed. "Are you coming with me, or staying a while yet?"

Sherlock grabbed his coat and scarf. "Coming with," he said, following John out the door of the flat, "and no, it's not my business, except that everything about you is _interesting_ , you know that. How did I not know?" 

John laughed, and stumbled against him slightly as they made their way down the stairs and out into the street to hail a cab. "It's not really something you can deduce, is it? Not like I get an extra freckle every time I shag someone." 

"If you did, I'd hold you down and count them," Sherlock said, fervently, and then realized that was probably not good.

"I bet you would," John said, ducking into the cab. 

Sherlock crowded in after him. "John, please." 

John looked at him sidelong, and laughed again. "A bit over a hundred. I think." 

Sherlock touched his arm, breathless with excitement. "Splendid, excellent sample size -- tell me, what did you learn?"

"I wasn't conducting an experiment," John said, smiling at him. "Only you would think of it as an experiment." He sighed and looked out the window, a smile still tugging at his mouth. "I suppose I found out that mostly, I like sex best when I'm friendly with the person. When I know them at least a little. It's nicer, to be able to fall asleep afterwards and not have things be awkward, or not to have to leave in the middle of the night." He shrugged. "I learned that I can be happy without sex, if there's a good reason for it, but that on the whole I'd rather have meaningless sex with strangers than not have it at all."

"I've _only_ had meaningless sex with strangers," Sherlock said, and John's attention obviously, visibly, snapped to him. He shrugged in his turn. "I was young and taking more cocaine than is healthy. I haven't, since about a year before I met you."

"Is that why Mycroft thinks sex alarms you? Because you've never had it sober?"

"Mycroft is not all-knowing. I'm not sure he knows I've had any sex at all." He grinned at John, suddenly amused, although he wasn't sure why. "Not too many CCTV cameras inside crack dens." 

"Did you like it?" John asked, his head tilted to the side. "The sex, I mean, not the crack dens, I know you like crack dens." 

"No," Sherlock said. "You can like it for the both of us, clearly you're more than capable." John leaned into his shoulder, laughing, his body warm and loose, and Sherlock draped one arm over John's back and returned the pressure. "Overall, a most satisfactory party," he said, into John's hair. 

* * *

Autumn turned wet and cold, then wetter and colder, and finally Sherlock had to admit that he wouldn't be moving out before the new year, and possibly not by Rosie's birthday at the end of January. He helped John wrap gifts for Rosie's first Christmas, and when John disappeared into his bedroom for three hours, he took Rosie for a walk in her pushchair, changed her, fed her, and put her down for a nap. She'd been asleep for twenty minutes when John emerged with his eyes and nose red with weeping. "Yeah," he said, "sorry."

"Don't be," Sherlock said. 

"Hell of a first Christmas, her dad can't even keep it together."

"I think you're allowed to not be perfectly all right, under the circumstances."

John sat down next to him, heavily, and covered his face with his hands. "Don't," he said. "Don't excuse the things I've done, Sherlock. There's no. I wasn't." He took a deep breath. "Yeah. So your Christmas gift is that I finally apologize to you for beating you half to death--." 

"John, I don't--"

"Just let me --" 

"No. No, you can't apologize, I don't want to hear it." John looked up at him, misery written all over him, and Sherlock sighed. "Fine, but we're doing this my way. Should you have hit me? No. Did I provoke you, knowing how dangerous it was? Yes -- "

"Sherlock--" 

"--it was hardly anything--"

"--it wasn't--"

"--and it was part of a plan, John, you were helping me bring down a killer--"

"I ALMOST KILLED YOU," John roared, suddenly shaking and tense with anger, and Sherlock stopped. "I almost killed you," John said, his voice soft, raw. 

"Yes," Sherlock said. He bumped his shoulder against John's. "Don't do it again." 

"Yeah," said John, and bumped him back, gently, so gently, his body warm at Sherlock's side. "I won't."

* * *

On Boxing Day, he flew to Sherrinford with Mycroft and their parents. The new governor, Carroll Vernet, met them in the large, nearly-empty governor's office, to brief their parents on contact procedures. Carroll was a first cousin once removed: pale-eyed, quiet, resistant to Eurus's abilities. Like Mycroft, he preferred the shadows, and left his office largely unused while he did his actual work in a much smaller room, with no nameplate on the door. It could barely be called subterfuge -- certainly it wouldn't fool Eurus -- but it would buy time if any of the other inmates escaped.

Eurus's cage looked no different to Sherlock, though he checked for reflections in the glass, as always. The last time he'd been there, she had moved towards him, had seemed to be listening to the music, watched his face and hands. They'd stared at each other. He'd been wary, uncertain, and he had no idea what she'd felt. 

This time, she picked up her own instrument and began to play with him, a faint smile twitching at her mouth. Behind him, he heard Mummy trying to stifle sobbing, and the unsteady rasp of Father's breathing. Eurus, if she noticed them at all, did not react; she looked only at him, played to him, with him, for him.

She looked...almost normal: a sweet, sad woman in loose hospital scrubs, intent on her music. His sister, wanting nothing more than his attention.

"Oh," his mother said, afterwards. "Oh, Sherlock. You always could reach her best."

He met Mycroft's eyes over her head, and said, "No, I don't think it's that, Mummy." 

"Of course it is, dear, don't be modest. It doesn't become you," she said, and patted his hand. "And if you improve your compositions a bit, I'm sure one day she won't feel the need to elaborate on them so. Something you can work on together."

Something hard and cold knotted in his stomach, and Mycroft closed his eyes and turned his face away. When Sherlock looked, he saw that Father had done the same. 

* * *

The Thursday after Christmas, Mycroft texted: _I won't be home until midnight. -M_

Sherlock broke in an hour beforehand and laid the fire himself. When Mycroft arrived, his face lined with exhaustion, Sherlock took a tentative step forward, just close enough for Mycroft to close the distance between them, if he wished. He did wish, apparently: he drew Sherlock in, dropped his head on his shoulder, and sighed. "Little brother," he said, softly. "Are you being _kind_ to me?"

"I'm giving this fraternal affection thing a try," Sherlock said. 

"What's next," Mycroft said. "Are you actually going to get a girlfriend?" 

"No," Sherlock said, and then honesty compelled him to add, "perhaps a boyfriend." 

"Ah," said Mycroft, raising his head, his eyes -- the same pale blue as Mummy's -- unblinking, curious. "I...hadn't deduced that, about you."

"Only if John is interested," Sherlock said. "I don't think he is, but it's not out of the realm of possibility." 

Mycroft looked thoughtful, and moved away to pour the brandy. "There's something I know," he said. "And which perhaps you do not. I kept Dr. Watson under surveillance while you were...away. He, ah. Well. He's told you in the past that he's not gay, but I must say, he's _certainly_ not straight, either. He's slept with several men that I am aware of."

"Hm," Sherlock said, to his brandy snifter. "Yes. I did know that. Or, at least, I knew he'd kissed men."

"I would have told you before," Mycroft said, "had I been aware that you cared. I was under the impression that you didn't."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I've had sex, Mycroft," he said, exasperated. "Admittedly, I wasn't sober at the time, but it isn't as if it's out of the realm of my experience." 

"I'm not talking about sex," Mycroft said. "Or, not only about sex. I don't do relationships myself, but I am well aware of your regard for Dr. Watson." He paused, and took a sip of his brandy. "All I am saying is that if he isn't interested, it's not because you're a man."

"That just leaves my winning personality," Sherlock said, and grinned at his brother, whose mouth twitched up into a matching grin, and then the two of them were laughing, warm and together in the firelight.

The warmth stayed with him, through the cab ride back to John's, through the night he spent idly composing in his head, staring at the ceiling of John's guest room. The next morning dawned bright and cold. Sherlock sat on the floor with Rosie, who was banging blocks together happily, and occasionally shrieking at him when he stole one.

"You could stay," John said, sitting down next to them, holding out a mug of coffee. "Instead of moving back. I like having you here." 

" _You_ could move back," Sherlock countered. "I hardly ever have anything in the box room; Rosie can have it."

"I'll think about it," John said.

* * *

In the end, he moved back alone. John helped him put the finishing touches on the flat, and must have seen the box room had been converted to a nursery, but he didn't mention it. Instead, he unpacked Sherlock's books -- those that had survived -- onto the shelves, his fingers careful on the spines. After he flattened the last box, he said, quietly, "I'm thinking of selling the house. If you meant it, about us moving here. But I'm not sure, not yet." 

"You're always welcome," Sherlock said. "Take as long as you need. I'm not going anywhere." 

* * *

### Four: I drew thee to my Valentine

John called, one sunny Saturday, two days before Rosie turned one. "I think you’d better get round here," he said, and something in his voice made shivers run down Sherlock's spine. When he arrived, John showed him a white DVD, like the one Mary had sent him after her death, but on it was written "MISS YOU" instead of the familiar "MISS ME?" John searched his face, and then said, "I didn't want to watch this alone." 

"Understood," Sherlock answered, and John slid it into the player, then glanced at him, as if checking that he was still there. 

Mary, looking as she had just before she died, smiled at them from the screen. "P.S.," she said, and there was no mistaking the warmth in her voice, nor the sorrow, "I know you two; and if I’m gone, I know what you could become, because I know who you really are.

He darted a look at John, who had tears standing in his eyes. 

On the screen, Mary took a breath, and her lips quirked. "A junkie who solves crimes to get high, and the doctor who never came home from the war." 

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock saw John's hand clench into a fist, then release. Then again: clench, release. 

Mary shook her head. "Well, you listen to me: who you really are, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the legend, the stories, the adventures. There is a last refuge for the desperate, the unloved, the persecuted. There is a final court of appeal for everyone." John turned away from the screen, his eyes closed, tears leaking from beneath his lids. Sherlock reached down and squeezed his shoulder, then let go. "When life gets too strange," Mary continued, and John turned back as if he couldn't keep looking away, "too impossible, too frightening, there is always one last hope. When all else fails, there are two men sitting arguing in a scruffy flat, like they’ve always been there, and they always will. The best and wisest men I have ever known. My Baker Street boys." She smiled, on screen, her beautiful, mad, clever smile. "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson."

John let out a breath as it ended, and then another, and then bent his head almost to his knees, his fingers laced behind his neck. "God," he said. "I love her. And I hate her. And I miss her. What the bloody hell is she doing to me?" 

"Trying to get you to move back in with me," Sherlock said. "Possibly trying to get us to be lovers?" 

"She would," John said. "She wasn't, um. Particularly monogamous."

"What?" Sherlock said, startled, because he'd never thought Mary had -- 

"Oh, no, not, not cheating on me. I just mean, she was. Open to...other arrangements. She'd, ah. Hinted once or twice that she'd be fine with you, if I. But I'm, ah. Monogamous, actually."

"When you're not fucking a hundred-odd people," Sherlock said, and John started laughing, but sobered quickly.

"It's why I found it so...so distressing, when I was texting -- well, Eurus. I didn't know why I was doing it. I didn't even really want to be doing it." He leaned back and rolled his head against the back of the sofa, and looked up at Sherlock. "She wanted to meet up, and I -- I didn't want to, but I kept almost agreeing, pulling myself back at the last second, asking myself what the hell I was doing." 

Sherlock sat down next to him. "She controlled people," he said. "She...you couldn't resist her entirely, but she couldn't fully control you, either. You're remarkably strong, John."

"I don't feel strong," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Christ." 

Sherlock shrugged. "You've driven Mycroft round the twist for years, you know; he's not like Eurus, but he's almost always able to intimidate people into perfect obedience." He laid his hand on John's arm. "But not you." 

John turned and rested his forehead on Sherlock's shoulder. "I do what _you_ tell me to," he said, wearily.

"That's because you have a weird service kink," Sherlock answered, because it was both probably-true and extremely unhelpful. "It's not because you're particularly susceptible to me."

"What the hell," John said, and shoved him, laughing, hands warm and strong on Sherlock's body. Sherlock let himself be shoved.

* * *

Mycroft knocked before entering the flat, which made Sherlock instantly suspicious, even before he could see his brother's face. When he could, he went from annoyed to alert so quickly that his heart slammed painfully against his ribs. "What is it?"

"Eurus," Mycroft said, and stared down at the handle of his umbrella, "is _pregnant_." 

Sherlock shook his head. "You wouldn't be telling me if you could have it terminated."

"No."

"So she hid it. From all of us." He'd seen her three times, since -- he did the math in his head. "Before or during our captivity, then."

Mycroft's face was bloodless, his lips thin. "During, I'm afraid." 

Sherlock stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned to stare at the wall. "One of the inmates, one of the staff?" 

"You know I wouldn't be here if it were that," Mycroft said.

"Christ," Sherlock said, "surely not you or me, which leaves--"

"Dr. Watson," Mycroft said. "I'm afraid so." 

Sherlock flung himself into his armchair and pressed his fingers to his mouth. "You should be here when I tell him." 

Mycroft nodded. "Of course." He tapped his umbrella on the floor. "He needn't feel obligated. The child will be cared for, regardless." 

"Of course he's not obligated," Sherlock said, "he was _raped._ This isn't like having a child with his wife. But he'll want to be involved."

Mycroft opened his mouth, closed it again.

"No," Sherlock said, the deduction snapping through his mind like lightning. "No, you absolutely cannot place an infant in an institution. Even if Eurus--" He broke off, took a breath. "No matter what she has done, her child has done nothing wrong." 

Mycroft drew back.

"No," Sherlock said, again. " _Emotional context_ , brother mine. And our parents are out of the question: all three of us are quite mad, they can't possibly be allowed to ruin anyone else. I'll do it myself, alone, if I have to, but I won't have to. _I know John."_ He texted John to come by, after work, before picking up Rosie.

* * *

"How--" John shook his head. "How did she _hide_ it?" 

"Entirely new staff," said Mycroft. "No one was familiar with her previous behavior, and she took care to establish routines that hid her body from notice." 

"I didn't see it, either," Sherlock said. "I've been to visit, John, and I didn't see it. Even Mycroft didn't notice. She's very clever."

Mycroft frowned at him and cleared his throat. "I had a pregnancy test administered when she was examined on her return from Musgrave, of course but --"

"It would've been too early," John said. "Yeah. Hang on, I'm just going to go be sick." He vanished into the loo. 

After a few moments, Sherlock followed him in, not bothering to knock. John had his hands on the sink, his head down, breathing deeply. "John."

"No," said John, and then, "yes, what," and then, "Christ." Sherlock laid his palm on John's back, John's ribs expanding and contracting under his hand. He thought of John, cold and wet but alive, his feet scrabbling at the side of the old well, and then his arms around Sherlock, shaking with exhaustion but holding on tightly, his heart beating frantically against Sherlock's own ribs. "Why," said John, to the sink.

"I don't know. Perhaps, like Magnusson, she wanted a hold over me, or Mycroft? Or perhaps to drive us apart?"

"Or keep us together," John said, meeting his eyes in the mirror. "If she wants to control you with a lever on me--" He broke off; he'd gone rigid and fierce under Sherlock's hand, the strong muscles of his back tensed. "What will happen, once --" 

"Mycroft wants to place the child in an institution."

John made a noise that might, in another world, have been a laugh. "He really is a cold bastard," he said, shaking his head. "Does he know the death rates for kids in institutions?" 

"He's probably counting on it," Sherlock said. "I said if it came to that, I would take custody."

"You."

Sherlock shrugged. "Better me than an institution. I have some small experience with Holmes offspring, after all, having been one."

John turned to face him. "I'm -- if you --" He paused, looked at the ceiling, at the floor, and then finally at Sherlock. "I'm the baby's father," he said. "We'd been talking about me and Rosie moving back here."

Sherlock nodded. 

"And if...if you? Would you--" 

"The three of you," Sherlock said. "If you want. If this child -- and everything that comes with that -- is a child you want to parent. Of course, all three of you." John opened his mouth, and Sherlock said, "Don't be ridiculous. If you wanted never to see this child, I would arrange -- somehow -- to raise it and still be in your life. I won't abandon you, John. But if you want to, if you...if you could do that, I, yes, absolutely."

"But--"

"Am I still your best friend?"

"Of course you--"

"And you love me. You told me that, that you love me." He tried not to babble, but he needed John to understand. "You meant it. And I told you, I love you. I love you, fine. I love you, you're my family. I'll do _anything you want_ , John, raising children with you isn't exactly a hardship."

John banged his head lightly on Sherlock's shoulder. "I can't think," he said. "I can't think about this now. I need time. I just -- _fuck_. I didn't even know. I didn't know she'd--" 

"I know," Sherlock said, softly, and folded John into his arms, let John shudder against his chest. One-handed, he texted Mycroft. 

_Leave. Talk later. -SH_

* * *

Sherlock went with John to retrieve Rosie, and to get takeaway, and back to John's house to eat dinner. John poked at his noodles and ate nearly nothing, then claimed he needed a shower. Sherlock packed away the leftovers and gave Rosie a sponge bath in the kitchen sink. John emerged to put her to bed, and Sherlock stretched out on the sofa and read through his inbox on his phone. Work was picking back up as spring approached, as it did every year. 

John returned, and said nothing, only paced the room. Sherlock watched him out of the corner of his eye for fifteen minutes, then got up and made tea. When he turned, cups in hand, John was staring through the ground-floor window. "I don't even know how to feel," John said. " _Fuck_. Fucking hell." 

Sherlock set the tea down and crossed the room, curled his hand around John's neck, and John crumpled, turning towards him, pressing his face to Sherlock's chest for the second time that night. "I _can't,"_ John said, softly, his voice and shoulders shaking. After a few minutes, John stilled, breath hot through Sherlock's shirt, and said, "If I do this, Sherlock, will I be doing the right thing? For me? For Rosie?" John's voice was muffled by Sherlock's body, and it rattled around inside him like a live thing.

Sherlock slid his fingers through John's hair. "Do you think you can be a good father to this child?"

"Fuck. I don't know." He pulled away and looked up, hollowed out, despair etched on his face. "Better us than someone who has no idea what Eurus is like, I think." 

"At least we know what pathologies to look for," Sherlock agreed. His hand was still on John's head, his fingertips pressing into John's skull, and he loosened his hold carefully, moved his hand to John's shoulder. 

John sighed. "Well, maybe we'll luck out and get a mini-Sherlock."

"God forbid," Sherlock said. "There has to be an end to your tolerance somewhere. I can't possibly let someone else use it all up and leave none for me." 

"You cock," John said, and hugged him, hard. 

"We should tell Mycroft," he said, into John's hair, "before he auctions it off unborn to the highest bidder." 

Maligning his brother was one of his favorite pastimes, made all the sweeter by John's laughter.

* * *

"I've told Mummy and Father," Mycroft said, when Sherlock joined him for the next trip to Sherrinford.

"How did they take it?"

Mycroft sighed. "It was difficult to make them understand what she'd done. They thought, at first, that Dr. Watson had--"

"John would _never_ ," Sherlock said, furious, because he might have missed John sleeping with a hundred people but he hadn't missed John's ethics: John would not consider an imprisoned mental patient a viable sex partner. 

"I know," Mycroft said, rubbing his eyes. "They're pleased to be getting a grandchild, no matter the circumstances." 

Sherlock made an irritated noise. He'd wanted to convince them to view Rosie as their grandchild, to see her and John as permanent parts of his life. 

"I know," Mycroft said, again. 

* * *

When he got home, John was in the flat, reading in his old armchair, a tumbler of whisky at his side. Rosie was asleep in a travel cot by the fireplace. 

"The scan says it's a boy," he said, as he hung up his coat. "How was therapy today?"

"I can't move back in," John said, almost as if he hadn't heard, except that he had. He'd set his glass down with a thump and a clink of ice, hard, when Sherlock had spoken. 

Sherlock sat in his chair and steepled his fingers. "Why not?" He kept his voice low, not wanting to wake Rosie. 

"Children need space, Sherlock. We'll need three bedrooms for the three of us, if the baby's a boy. We can't fit, here, you can't think we will. There's no room." 

"You and I could share a room," Sherlock said.

"You don't think the lack of privacy would drive us both up the wall? You can barely stand to have me in your room long enough to find a book," John said.

"It would be worth it, to have you home."

"It wouldn't be worth it to me," John said, his face averted, eyes on the floor. He stood up, took two steps away, shook his head, folded his arms across his chest. 

"John--" 

"No. Don't do this, Sherlock." 

"John, listen to me." John shook his head again, but he met Sherlock's eyes briefly, and Sherlock read longing and despair and anger in the flicker of contact. He leaned towards John, trying to project sincerity. "It's all about the stories," he said, softly. "That's what Mary meant: it's about the stories we tell ourselves, as much as anything else." He gestured at the room around them, John's armchair, his music stand, the travel cot for Rosie. "You know about stories, John. What story --" He took a deep breath. "What story do you want to tell? I know the one I want."

John sniffed and stared at the ceiling, his hands on his hips. "My story's shit, you know it is."

"Tell a better one." John just looked at him, unmoving, face set. Sherlock stood up and placed his hands on John's shoulders. "All right. How's this. You're a reasonably successful man with two children. You're raising them with your best friend, and you're a little bit sexually confused about that situation, but it's all right, because so is he and you're both willing to muddle along. He desperately wants you to move in with him because, frankly, your back garden isn't nice enough to tolerate the boring neighborhood, and anyway, the children love his landlady."

John laughed, sudden and damp-sounding. "You complete fucker," he said. "You left out all the --" He waved his hand around and slapped it down on his thigh, a sharp meaty sound. "Anyway, I'm not sexually confused, I'm bisexual. And I don't have two children yet." 

"You will. You're considering naming your son after the aforementioned best friend, because you're still feeling badly that you didn't name your daughter after him."

"I'm _not_ naming the baby _Sherlock_ ," John said. 

### Five: The lot was cast, and then I drew

Sherlock fiddled with his unlit cigarette, his back to his parents' house. Behind him, the door banged, and then John was at his side, their arms brushing. "All right?" John said, and Sherlock put the cigarette back in the pack and handed it over. 

"They're driving me mad, as usual," he said, mildly, and John huffed softly, crumpling the pack in his hands.

"You and me both," he said. "They -- well."

His parents, Mummy especially, have been expressing excitement about their impending grandchild at John in ways that Sherlock could tell made him uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than he already was. "They're acting as if you chose to --"

John cut him off. "Yeah, thanks, I don't need someone else saying it." 

"Think about something else. Think about another round of newborn nappies. About how you're going to be so tired that you'll even let me take care of your children."

"Don't," John said, "don't act like you're my last choice."

"'Anyone but you,'" Sherlock said, mostly to the stone pathway, but beside him, John drew a sharp breath.

"Yeah, I should never've said that," John replied. "Jesus, Sherlock, I shouldn't've said it. Stabbing you in the heart would've hurt you less, I think."

Sherlock frowned at his feet, and brushed his shoulder against John's. He didn't exactly forgive John -- but he wasn't exactly still hurt, either. "Never mind that now. We should go in and rescue Rosie. I'm not certain letting her get attached to my parents is wise." 

"Oh?"

"They'll want Eurus's child, do you see? They won't -- Rosie won't mean anything to them. They'll make that perfectly clear." He knew, intimately, what it felt like to be a distant second -- perhaps even third -- in his parents' eyes.

"No," said John. "Like hell they will. Because I won't tolerate that, and neither will you. They'll treat both of our children the same or they won't see them."

" _Our_ children," Sherlock said. "John, are we _together_?" 

John shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'm not --" he said, and sighed, and then said, "I never, um. Saw myself in a relationship with a man. But...do you want to be?" He sniffed, twitching his nose sideways in that way he had. "I, ah, talked to Ella about it. She thinks I could do worse than give it a try, with you." He smiled, briefly. "I think she likes you. I think she likes how much _I_ like you."

Sherlock looked over his shoulder at the house. His father was watching them from a window. "I'm just calculating the odds of getting you to shag me in my childhood bed to upset my parents," he said, and John giggled. Sherlock grinned down at him. "If I weren't already disappointing enough, that'd finish the job."

"I'm not shagging you just to annoy your parents," John said. "Besides, I thought you didn't like sex." He studied Sherlock's face. "Your dad's watching from the window, hm?" 

"Mm." 

John flickered his eyes up, back down, rolled his shoulders. "Yeah. All right. Might as well. Could kiss you like I mean it, if you like. Give him a show." 

Sherlock snickered, careful to keep his face turned so that his father couldn't see his expression. "Why not?" he said, cupping the back of John's neck, and John grinned and leaned up to meet him.

John's mouth was warm and sure on his, John's shoulder pressed into his chest, and he regretted the kiss instantly: that this was to annoy his father, not because he and John had decided -- 

John drew away, the tiniest bit, and then he made a soft noise in his throat and leaned in again. He pulled Sherlock close, his fingers digging into Sherlock's hip, and Sherlock opened his mouth to John's -- John made another soft noise -- Sherlock's entire body wanted to go boneless and pliant against John's strength. He wondered abruptly if sex with John might possibly be non-awful. No, probably not; cocaine was the only thing that had ever made sex tolerable and he was sure John wouldn't agree to-- 

John ended the kiss, then grinned up at him and laid his head down on Sherlock's chest, close and intimate. "If you do that again," Sherlock said, breathless, vaguely aroused, his mouth against John's hair, "people really will talk." 

"People do little else," John said, sliding his hand from Sherlock's hip around his waist, holding him close. "Together?"

"All right." 

* * *

John moved back to Baker Street, and into Sherlock's bedroom. Rosie moved into the upstairs bedroom, and Rosie's toys moved into a basket by the fireplace, or underfoot, or into the kettle. 

"Together" appeared to mean that John would kiss him sweetly, his hands on Sherlock's head or neck or hips, and that John would sleep quietly next to him in bed, and otherwise treated Sherlock with the exact same anger-tinged fondness and black humour that he always had. Sherlock had to admit he'd expected that John would ask for sex, at least occasionally, but instead John did nothing of the sort. He'd thought, perhaps, that being John's romantic partner would be more different from being his best friend than it turned out to be.

He wasn't entirely certain how he felt about that, but on the whole, he found it rather satisfactory. He'd already proven his excellent qualities as a best friend, after all. 

* * *

The medical precautions taken with the birth were, Sherlock thought, excessive. Even for as many people as Eurus killed or controlled, surely she could be merely restrained. Mycroft disagreed, and it was his commands that held sway: the child was born by Caesarian section in the Sherrinford infirmary, with Eurus under general anaesthesia. She would never lay eyes on her own child, never speak one word to him.

"Are you going to tell her he _died_ ," Sherlock snarled, when Mycroft told them the arrangements, and Mycroft's lips thinned: a tell. He'd planned to do just that.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," John said, hands on his hips, "as if she's going to believe you. _Don't_ give her an excuse to break out again. Just. Tell her the truth. If you're capable of it." 

Mycroft capitulated with ill grace, but he did capitulate. 

The weather was warm and pleasant on the day of the scheduled birth, the first time John had been back to Sherrinford. Sherlock found it, if not precisely welcoming, at least familiar; John jerked himself militarily-erect in the sunshine and clenched his gun hand. Carroll met them at the old governor's office and smiled, thinly. "We'd like to be alone," Sherlock said, and Carroll nodded. 

  
"Of course." He studied John for a few seconds, and then said, "Security has been tightened since you were here last, Dr. Watson. I assure you, there will be no need for any violence." 

John frowned, and when Carroll left, he rounded on Sherlock. "Is _he_ related to you, too?" 

"Yes. My mother's cousin." 

"Isn't that a bit like setting the fox to guard the henhouse?" 

"No." Sherlock sat on the desk. "He is well-aware of who, and what, Eurus is. Intimately, in a way the previous governor was not: he knows what we're like, you see." 

John closed his eyes. "All right," he said. "All right." 

They waited. John paced the room, shook out his gun hand repeatedly. "I was with Mary," John said. "When Rosie was born. I was so --" He clenched his fist and looked down. 

"I remember," Sherlock answered.

"This is mad," John said. "I don't want to do this. I don't, Sherlock, I haven't...Christ, I can't even talk about how this _happened_. I just stare at Ella half the time, do you know that?"

"We don't _know_ exactly how it happened," Sherlock said, suddenly angry. "I can try to deduce it, if you like, if it would be what you wanted, but it isn't, John, you'd rather not have a clearer picture of it in your head. You need to _decide_. If you can't raise this child, that's understandable, but you need to--"

"Yes. I can, of course I can, that's not what I--" He crossed his arms over his chest and shook himself. "I meant. Be here. I can't be here. I can't think about how this happened, not here." 

Sherlock stood and held out his hand until John took it. "Come on." He led John out onto the balcony, to the windswept rock-and-concrete of Sherrinford, and they looked out over the sea. "It's beautiful," he said. "Out here."

"It was out here that I figured out Eurus had control of the governor," John said. He gripped the railing, shook his head, snarled helplessly down at the water.

Sherlock thought about John, standing deep inside Sherrinford, offering his hand: his flesh warm and sure and solid, his eyes cool and assessing. He thought about John, braced for death, and the shock on his face when Sherlock turned the gun on himself. He reached out, slowly, and pulled John to him, tucked John's face into his shoulder, wrapped him up tight and held on. John's arms closed around him fiercely, and then John was pulling his head down, kissing him desperately, with teeth, his hands hard on Sherlock's body, fingers knotting into Sherlock's clothes. Sherlock turned his face away. "John. Don't." 

John let him go, tried to step away, but Sherlock held on, keeping John close. "I'm sorry," John said, closing his eyes.

"It's fine," Sherlock answered. "It's just--" He cast about, trying to come up with the words to explain: _that was too much like being a convenient body_ didn't seem like the right thing to say, nor did _I can't shut myself down and let you use me_. "It's just, I don't like, um. Rough. Things."

"Right," John said, and stilled under Sherlock's hands, tears leaking from beneath his eyelids.

Sherlock bent and kissed him, soft and chaste, the barest touch of his mouth on John's, and John shuddered, wrapping his arms around Sherlock's back and holding on.

* * *

They named the baby Geraint, in the end. Or rather, Sherlock did. A nurse brought him to John, who took him for a few seconds and then handed him to Sherlock. "I need a minute," he said, and vanished back onto the balcony. 

The baby was small and quiet, smaller than Rosie had been, and less squashed-looking. He blinked up at Sherlock. "It would serve John right if I named you Sherlock," he told the baby. The nurse handed him a bottle, and he nudged the nipple into the baby's mouth. He remembered Mary, Rosie at her breast, staring down at her daughter in amazement, while John watched them both, his hand pressed to his mouth. He'd taken a picture on his phone, but he hadn't looked at it since Mary died. He wished that John was looking at him, at this baby, like that, although of course it was understandable that John wasn't.

The nurse helped him adjust the angle of the bottle. The baby had John's faintly lopsided mouth, the curl of it visible around the nipple. "What if I named you Hamish? That'd serve John right, too." The baby blinked again, uncomprehending, sucking contentedly at the bottle.

"Lay off," John said, from the doorway. 

"Fine," said Sherlock, not looking up. "Geraint." 

"Why?"

Sherlock took a deep breath. "I never thought I'd have children, John, but...I used to wonder what it would be like if I did. What I'd do with them. What I'd call them." He traced one finger over the faint fuzz of the baby's eyebrows. "A son was always Geraint. I don't know why." 

"All right," John said. 

* * *

### Six: And fortune said it should be you.

Sherlock found himself waking at night from the lack of John's breathing next to him, as much as for cries from Geraint or Rosie -- Rosie woke often when the baby cried, and had to be soothed back to sleep. 

He and John passed each other like shadows, one of them with one child, one of them with the other. "I'm glad you're here," John said, after a week. It was three in the morning, and Geraint fussed in Sherlock's arms while John prepped a bottle.

"Where else would I be?" Sherlock answered. John kissed him on the cheek. 

* * *

When the baby was a month old, they took him to see Sherlock's parents. Mummy insisted he wasn't dressed warmly enough -- "It's July," John said, dryly -- and Father asked Rosie if she liked being a big sister. 

Rosie scowled at him, and said, "No," in a tone indicating that she thought the question was stupid. 

"Ah," said Father. "Well, would you like a snack?" 

"Yes," said Rosie, pleased, and followed him into the kitchen. 

Geraint was hungry, too, and Mummy gave him a bottle, touching his nose and eyebrows with her fingers as he drank. "Our sweet girl's little boy," she said, and John flinched. Sherlock brushed his fingers against John's arm, and John shook his head.

When the baby finished eating, John handed him to Sherlock. "Go on, go put him to sleep," he said, and Sherlock went. There was a travel cot in his old bedroom, and he sat on the bed with Geraint on his chest, listening to his breathing deepen as he fell asleep. 

Sherlock dozed off too, and woke when John knocked at the door. "Thought you might've fallen asleep," he said. Sherlock could hear Mummy's voice from downstairs, warped through the floorboards.

"Didn't want to move him," Sherlock answered, speaking as softly as he could without whispering. Geraint disliked whispering noises, but loved the rumble of his chest. 

John came in and sat down next to him on the bed. Sherlock sighed and stared at the ceiling. "I'm sorry about them," he said. 

"It's not your fault," John said. "They have some, ah. Fixed ideas about Eurus."

"They wanted a girl," Sherlock said. "They had Mycroft, and later they wanted a daughter, only they got me." He shook his head. "Cute enough, but _emotional_ , and closer to _ordinary_ than they imagined a child of theirs being--" 

"You're extraordinary," John said. "You are."

"I'm not what they wanted," Sherlock said. "Regardless. Eurus is rather abstract to them, I think. Half a disaster, but half an imaginary, perfect daughter. Whereas I am perennially disappointing."

"Is this another roundabout request for me to shag you in this bed to upset them? Because I have to tell you, adding a baby into the mix doesn't help." 

"No," said Sherlock. "It's not. Although I can't imagine it would be the worst sex I've ever had." He looked down his chest at Geraint. He had Eurus' auburn hair, and when his eyes were open, they were the same pale, clear blue as Sherlock's own. There was no mistaking his parentage, and he thought it must hurt John to see, every time, though John gave no sign of it. "Can I ask you something?" he asked. 

"If history is anything to go by, yes."

"You slept with over a hundred people."

John rolled his eyes. "That's not a question." 

"You like sex. Does what Eurus did..." He trailed off, not quite sure how to ask the question, without hurting John more, and then continued, because there wasn't any way to ask except directly. "Does having that done to you, does that override...everything? For you?"

John frowned and shook his head. "Yes. No." He took a deep breath. "I don't remember it happening. I don't even know how to think about that, you know? If it weren't for Geraint, I never would have known. So it's strange." He studied his hands. "After Mary died, I didn't even want sex. For the longest time. Not 'til, I don't know, after Christmas? That was strange for me, too. Knowing that I _did_ \--" 

"You didn't. John. You were--"

"I _know_ . I know, all right." John looked up at him, then down at Geraint. Through the floorboards came Rosie's laughter and Sherlock's mother saying, "Mikey!" in a shocked tone. "He looks like you, you know. Sometimes I think, _this is the closest I can get to having a child with Sherlock_ , and then I'm...so angry. At how it happened." 

Sherlock turned his head, pressed his lips to John's hair. "Before. Before we found out about her. I had this...dream, I suppose. That I could tell my parents, _John and Rosie are my family._ And now. Now I feel like Eurus took that from me. From us. Even though I--" He placed a hand over Geraint's tiny back. "I. Wouldn't trade him. Even though."

"It doesn't make you a bad friend," John said. "It doesn't mean you wish what happened on me. It means it's awful. And complicated. But maybe, one day, it might be okay."

Sherlock swallowed, hard. "One day, when it is, you can kiss me like you mean it." 

"Oh," John said. "I already mean it." He stretched up, and this time the kiss was gentle, slick and hot, filthy and tender. Sherlock's body was on fire, lit up as if he'd just gotten the most brilliant case, bright with hunger. 

He tore his mouth away. "The baby," he said, and John rolled over, slid his hands underneath Geraint and lifted him away, settled him into the cot. 

"There," he said, and straddled Sherlock's thighs. "Where were we?" He bent and kissed Sherlock again, sweetly but with unmistakable intent.

Sherlock arched upwards, sliding all ten fingers into John's hair, pressing their bodies together as much as he could with the limited leverage he had. John's shirt rucked up, his vest twisting into the hem. "Off?" he asked, and Sherlock nodded, opening his own shirt. 

John's hands on his skin left trails of sensation in their wake, and John kissed his neck, his collarbone, and his shoulders before returning to his mouth. Sherlock kissed him back, frantic for more of this, more of him. He could feel John, hard against him, and he fumbled between them, unbuttoning his trousers and then John's, trying to take them off without letting go of John, without losing contact with John's skin. 

"Hm," John said, and leaned back, taking his skin with him. Sherlock shivered and looked up at him, dazed, and John quirked an uncertain smile at him. "Sherlock...I...you said you don't like sex. I thought ... you do like kissing, so I thought, just --"

"It's different with you," Sherlock said.

"Is it?" John smiled at him, brushed his lips over his forehead. "Oh, you want to be my hundred-and-somethingeth? In your childhood bed, your parents just downstairs, the baby asleep next to you?"

"I want to be your last," Sherlock answered. 

"Fuck," John said, and climbed off of him to remove his own clothes, then Sherlock's, and then he was back, skin and hair and smell of him hot and thrilling. He licked his hand and slipped it between their bodies, and wrapped it around both of their cocks together. His touch was slick and sure, and he dropped soft, tender kisses on Sherlock's face and down his neck as he worked. "Yes?" He slid his thumb over the sensitive head, and Sherlock gasped, his legs trembling and his entire body throbbing. "Close?" John said, and shifted up, looking down into Sherlock's face. "Come on, then, let's disappoint your parents." 

Sherlock was still laughing when the orgasm hit, and he bit into John's shoulder to muffle the sound: laughter turned to ecstasy. John's cock, still pressed against his in the shelter of John's hand, hardened further. John whimpered and kissed him, his body shaking through his own orgasm, and then slumped against him. Sherlock ran his hand down John's back, drawing trails in the perspiration with his fingertips. He felt warm. He'd never felt warm after sex before. 

"Good," John mumbled, his mouth against Sherlock's collarbone.

"Good," Sherlock answered, and then, "How long?" 

"'S complicated," John said, and lifted his head, propping himself up on his elbows. "I mean. I don't--" An angry shriek from Rosie came through the floorboards, and John sighed and rolled away, grabbing for the baby wipes. "They're playing my song," he said, cleaning his stomach and cock, then climbing out of bed to look for his clothes. 

"John?" Mummy called, and John cursed and yanked on his pants and trousers. Sherlock watched him button himself back into his shirt, and then wipe his hands again. "John?" she called again.

"How much do I look like I've been fucking you?" John asked, eyes bright and amused, smile sly. Sherlock laughed, and John blew him a kiss and fled before Mummy could come knock on the door. 

* * *

He dressed slowly, not wanting to leave his summer-warm bedroom. Geraint made soft breathing noises in his cot under the window, and Sherlock touched his face with the back of one finger. 

"Let's see if your daddy will let me be more than your unofficial other daddy," he whispered, and Geraint shifted in his sleep in the dim, curtain-filtered light, tiny and perfect and John-like, and Sherlock smiled down at him, filled with hope.

* * *

On the drive back to London, both children asleep in the back seat, Sherlock said, "Will you let me adopt Geraint? Mycroft could fix it." 

There was a long pause, and John tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "Did you sleep with me to improve your bargaining position?" he asked. 

"No," said Sherlock, "although I would have, if I'd thought of it beforehand." 

John's mouth twitched up into a smile. "All right," he said. "Yes."

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The nursery rhyme Sherlock recites to Rosie is a version of "Oranges & Lemons" or "The London Bells". The particular version is recorded as "The Merry Bells of London" in _Gammer Gurton's Garland_ , published around 1783. Sherlock's father owns a copy of the 1866 printing.
> 
> Interstitial titles are from "The Valentine", also in _Gammer Gurton's Garland_.
> 
> Many thanks to Ariana de Vere for Sherlock episode transcripts, which are -- as always -- an amazing resource. 
> 
> The working draft for this story was entitled "terrible idea". Now you know.


End file.
